No end to the killing
by Heinrich Frei, 5/23/2025
The unprecedented increase in military spending last year shows that it is assumed there will be more wars. That is why armament is being pursued according to the principle: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” Young people are to become “fit for war” again, and many countries are discussing the introduction of compulsory military service.
No end to the killing
“No more war” was one of Pope Leo XIV’s first messages to the world — bad news for struggling arms companies.
“Peace be with you,” said the newly elected pope as he greeted the crowd waiting in St. Peter’s Square. However, this message fell on deaf ears among those who profit from arms and the politicians who serve them — as did all previous messages. On the contrary, global arms spending is currently rising dramatically. The war in Ukraine and the Gaza conflict are usually cited as reasons that allegedly force countries in the West, East, and South to increase their “defense spending.” Greed for power and money are never openly named as motives—it is always either “the other” or an ineradicable human “predisposition” to violence that is to blame. Yet this thesis does not stand up to close historical scrutiny. Wars are among the relatively latest ideas to have occurred to humankind—and among the worst.
by Heinrich Frei
[This article posted on 5/23/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/kein-ende-des-mordens.]
The unprecedented increase in military spending last year shows that it is assumed there will be more wars. That is why armament is being pursued according to the principle: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” Young people are to become “fit for war” again, and many countries are discussing the introduction of compulsory military service. In Germany, the largest arms manufacturer, Rheinmetall, is focusing on armaments instead of e-mobility. This company is converting civilian sites to military technology (1).
Will the message of peace from the new Pope Leo XIV, who called for “no more war” and demanded an end to the wars in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip, Sudan, and over 100 other conflicts, fall on deaf ears? Will the arms race continue?
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 2024 saw an unprecedented increase in military spending.
Compared to 2023, it rose by 9.4 percent from US$2,443 billion to US$2,718 billion. It was the sharpest year-on-year increase since the end of the Cold War.
Over 100 countries have increased military spending
Xiao Liang, a researcher with the SIPRI program on military expenditure and arms production, wrote:
“Over 100 countries around the world increased their military spending in 2024. As governments increasingly prioritize military security, often at the expense of other budget areas, the economic and social trade-offs could have significant implications for societies in the years ahead.”
“For the first time since reunification, Germany became the country in Western Europe with the highest military spending, due to the €100 billion special defense fund announced in 2022,” said Lorenzo Scarazzato, researcher at the SIPRI program on military spending and arms production.
“Recent policies in Germany and many other European countries suggest that Europe has entered a phase of high and rising military spending that is likely to continue in the foreseeable future,” (2)
Ever-increasing military spending
The share of military spending in government spending rose to 7.1 percent worldwide in 2024. Military spending per person was the highest since 1990 at $334. That amounts to $0.92 per person per day. By way of comparison, in 2022, around 9 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, meaning they had less than $2.15 per day at their disposal.
The ten-year rise in global military spending can be attributed in part to increased spending in Europe, mainly due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, and in the Middle East due to the Gaza war and larger regional conflicts. Many countries have also committed to increasing military spending, which will lead to a further rise in military spending worldwide in the coming years (3).
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI
With 50 to 60 employees, SIPRI is the accountant of wars, military spending, and arms spending. Half of the SIPRI’s costs are covered by the Swedish government. In 2024, this government allowed the Swedish arms industry to export war material worth 29 billion kronor (US$3 billion), 63 percent more than in 2023 (4).
US military budget six times larger than Russia’s
The SIPRI figures are very important. They may bring some politicians to their senses if they want to continue arming themselves in order to “secure peace” with more weapons and soldiers, as they say. SIPRI documented, for example, that in 2024, US military spending amounted to US$997 billion, while Russia’s was US$149 billion, more than six times less than that of the United States. SIPRI also showed that Germany, the UK, France, and Italy together spend US$273 billion on the military, 1.8 times more than their enemy Russia.
What SIPRI director Dan Smith said is very strange:
“Now, with some delay after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, defense spending is also being significantly increased in Europe. Many countries are acknowledging serious gaps in their defense capabilities.”
The SIPRI director therefore considers the current level of armament to be “reasonable” (5).
What would happen if SIPRI, which is half-funded by the Swedish state, took a stand against Sweden’s exports of war material to countries that have now become warring parties through their arms deliveries to Israel and Ukraine? What would happen if SIPRI employees were to scrutinize Sweden’s policies of the last decades as critically as German journalist Dirk Pohlmann and South African author Andrew Feinstein (6)?
World Food Programme calls for US$16.9 billion
No one would have to go hungry anymore. All children in the world could go to school. Everyone could receive help when they become sick and old if a fraction of the global military spending of US$2.718 trillion were used for these things. But even the financing of the World Food Programme (WFP) is lacking.
In the US, public schools are underfunded and teachers are poorly paid. They often have to beg for help, while US$997 billion will be spent on military equipment in 2024.
This is reflected in the slogan on a T-shirt that a friend of mine once bought in New York:
It will be a great day when the Air Force has to sell homemade cakes to buy a bomber and our schools get the money they need. Photo: Heinrich Frei
US$16.9 billion for the World Food Programme
The World Food Programme (WFP) recently requested around US$16.9 billion to tackle the escalating global hunger crisis. That is roughly equivalent to what the world spends on the military in two and a half days. Funding gaps in 2024 forced the WFP to reduce its activities, often leaving some of the most vulnerable unable to receive help and starving.
The WFP’s call for US$16.9 billion to tackle the escalating global hunger crisis came after the publication of its Global Outlook 2025, which assesses food needs. According to the WFP, hunger continues to rise:
343 million people in 74 countries are currently affected by acute food insecurity — a 10 percent increase from last year. This includes 1.9 million people on the brink of famine, with catastrophic hunger prevailing in regions such as Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti, and Mali.
Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the WFP, described the seriousness of the situation:
“Global demand for humanitarian aid is rising, fueled by devastating conflicts, more frequent climate disasters, and widespread economic turmoil. But funding cannot keep pace.”
As mentioned above, funding gaps in 2024 forced the WFP to scale back its activities, often leaving some of the most vulnerable behind to starve. (7)
Distribution of oil and grain from the US in Merka, Somalia. (Photos: Förderverein Neue Wege in Somalia, founded by Vre Karrer) (8)
To date, the United States of America, as the world’s largest economy, has been by far the most important supporter of the World Food Programme. The new US President Donald Trump has now reduced support for UN organizations, which has already had disastrous consequences.
Impairment of peace research
The work of SIPRI is very important. Independent research can be hampered when government institutions finance research. Government agencies are linked to the military, industry, banks, and circles that believe that peace must be secured primarily through weapons, and therefore generously allow the arms industry to export war material (3, 4).
Swisspeace in Switzerland is a practical and research institution dedicated to promoting effective peacebuilding (9). Swisspeace’s most important clients include the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, as well as national and international organizations, foundations, and think tanks.
Swisspeace director Laurent Goetschel expressed skepticism about the effects of a Hamas ban in Switzerland on the SRF Club program (10). In his view, this would open the door to declaring other actors—such as the Kurdish PKK—terrorists and banning them as well. This would make the search for peace more difficult. The Basel-Landschaft cantonal parliament did not agree with Goetschel’s statement. It cut Swisspeace’s annual funding of 100,000 Swiss francs, which was scheduled to run from 2024 to 2027. It is to be feared that Swisspeace would also have its funding cut if it were to oppose Switzerland’s arms export policy and, for example, advocate a ban on arms exports to NATO countries such as the US, which are repeatedly at war, and regimes in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia (11).
Comprehensive peace research
The unprecedented increase in military spending in 2024 shows that it is assumed that there will be more wars. That is why armament is being pursued according to the principle: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
Today, many people think that wars have always existed and will always exist. Wars are also caused by a genetic predisposition of humans to violence. Or they think that the way society is organized today inevitably leads to military conflicts. In other words, the cause of armed conflicts also lies in how society was organized after the period of human history known as the hunter-gatherer era, a world of agriculture, villages, cities, private property, social classes, and hierarchies. These theories have since been disproved.
War is not in our genes; it is a late exception in human history.
Today, comprehensive peace research involving all sciences would be necessary to prevent wars. Archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and biologists have already made a start. They have come to the conclusion that
Wars are not caused by a genetic predisposition of humans to violence, but are cultural aberrations of humanity that could be avoided in the future. The researchers also found that wars have only occurred in the last one percent of human history.
Historians also remind us that in historically documented periods, many peoples lived peacefully for long periods of time without armed conflict (11).
In recent years, impressive books have been published on this topic that turn human history upside down. Rutger Bregmann wrote the book “Dying to Be Right: The New History of Humanity” in 2012, David Graeber and David Wengrow published their study “The Origins of All Things: A New History of Humanity” in 2022, and Harald Meller, Kai Michel, and Carl van Schaik produced the documentary “Evolution of Violence” in 2024.
Sources and notes:
(1) Expansion at Rheinmetall — Rheinmetall focuses on armaments instead of e-mobility | nd-aktuell.de
(3) Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2024
(4) New Record for Swedish Arms Export | Sweden Herald
(5) SIPRI Director Dan Smith is firmly convinced that today’s arms build-up is a reasonable response to the threat posed by Russia. But what would happen at SIPRI in Sweden if he took a stand against the arms build-up by Western countries and Sweden? Would he still be acceptable as head of SIPRI in Stockholm? Sweden is involved in the business of war, having supplied weapons for all the wars waged by the US and its NATO allies in recent decades, in which millions of people have died. Sweden was also directly involved with soldiers in the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
As in the UK, investigations into corrupt arms deals were blocked by the Swedish state, as Andrew Feinstein revealed in his book “The Arms Trade: The Global Business of Death.”
Andrew Feinstein, a former member of the South African Parliament, showed in his 840-page book how investigations into arms companies involved in bribery scandals were blocked by the governments of both the UK and Sweden.
Feinstein described the activities of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, and their helpers and accomplices. Tony Blair, for example, persuaded South Africa to buy British fighter jets that the South African Air Force did not want. Blair successfully exerted pressure—and in the end, £115 million in bribes had been paid, according to Feinstein. While South Africa purchased $11 billion worth of military equipment from the UK, the US, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and other countries, there was no money to buy medicine to treat the six million people infected with HIV and those suffering from AIDS. More than 355,000 South Africans died because they did not receive life-saving medication, according to Feinstein.
(6): Operation Deception — The Reagan Method / Documentary by Dirk Pohlmann: Free download, borrow, and streaming: Internet Archive
(7) WFP requires $16.9 billion in 2025 as hunger reaches alarming highs | UN News
(8) Support association “New Paths in Somalia”
(10) “SRF Club”
(11) Research as a place of free thought — Bajour
(12) Experts on the evolution of collective violence: “War is not genetic”
Heinrich Frei, born in 1941, is an architect and is involved in various peace initiatives in Switzerland. He also works with Swisso Kalmo.